Big Creek is a roughly long tributary of

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

Chilcotin River The Chilcotin River /tʃɪlˈkoʊtɪn/ located in Southern British Columbia, Canada is a long tributary of the Fraser River. The name Chilcotin comes from Tŝilhqot’in, meaning "ochre river people," where ochre refers to the mineral used by ...

. Its surroundings are protected as the Big Creek Ecological Reserve. Its source is remote Lorna Lake, located deep in the midst of the Chilcotin Ranges, near the vertex of the boundaries of Big Creek Provincial Park, the valley of the

Taseko River The Taseko River or Dasiqox in the original Chilcotin, is a tributary of British Columbia's Chilko River, a tributary of the Chilcotin River which joins the Fraser near the city of Williams Lake. The Taseko has its origins at Taylor Pass in t ...

and Taseko Lakes, which lies to its west, and the Spruce Lake Protected Area to its south (aka the "South Chilcotin" even though it is in the

Bridge River Country The Bridge River Country is a historic geographic region and mining district in the Interior of British Columbia, Canada, lying between the Fraser Canyon and the valley of the Lillooet River, south of the Chilcotin Plateau and north of the Lillo ...

, part of the

Lillooet Lillooet () is a district municipality in the Squamish-Lillooet region of southwestern British Columbia. The town is on the west shore of the Fraser River immediately north of the Seton River mouth. On BC Highway 99, the locality is by road abo ...

region). Near Lorna Lake is a location known as Graveyard Valley, believed to be the site of the final battle of a 19th-century war between the Tsilhqot'in and St'at'imc peoples over control of the upper basin of the

Bridge River The Bridge River is an approximately long river in southern British Columbia. It flows south-east from the Coast Mountains. Until 1961, it was a major tributary of the Fraser River, entering that stream about six miles upstream from the town of L ...

, which lies over the mountains to the south of Big Creek. The Big Creek basin is the easternmost of three southern tributary basins of the Chilcotin, the others to its west being the

basin and, west of it, the

Chilko River The Chilko River is a river in the Chilcotin District of the Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada, flowing northeast from Chilko Lake to the Chilcotin River. Its main tributary is the Taseko River. The Chilko is the Chilcotin River's ...

basin. The largest stream to its east is Churn Creek, whose headwater creeks share a divide with the Big Creek basin, and which drains directly to the

Fraser River The Fraser River () is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain (Canada), Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of V ...

. Only the uppermost reaches of Big Creek are in mountain country, however. About from its source the creek emerges onto the

Chilcotin Plateau The Chilcotin Plateau is part of the Fraser Plateau, a major subdivision of the Interior Plateau of British Columbia. The Chilcotin Plateau is physically near-identical with the region of the same name, i.e. "the Chilcotin", which lies between ...

, which lines the lea of the

Coast Mountains The Coast Mountains () are a major mountain range in the Pacific Coast Ranges of western North America, extending from southwestern Yukon through the Alaska Panhandle and virtually all of the British Columbia Coast, Coast of British Columbia sout ...

, and for most of its length it meanders across a mix of rangeland and subalpine forest and swamp.

References

Rivers of the Chilcotin Lillooet Land District {{BritishColumbiaInterior-river-stub